The Jeanneton Family
"They're human, but very old. Very Strong. And very knowledgeable of things which are much better left unknown." - Hiram, to Eleanor on the Jeannetons Family Origin & History There is no record of the Jeanneton family as a family of hunters prior to 1803 when white Creole Augustin Jeanneton through the system of plaçage took the voodoo practitioner Evangeline Marie as his mistress and consort. Evangeline Marie passed down her affinity for the art and all her knowledge to her children with Jeanneton, teaching them never to fear the darkness nor what hid within it, but to harness and use it. Upon Augustin Jeanneaton's death a third of his property was left to Evangeline Marie and their three surviving children, who eventually began to speculate real estate and open grocery stores and shops with their inherited capital. In addition to these sources of income, the Jeannetons further provided services of ritual and craft to the people of New Orleans in a lucrative business. The Jeannetons differed from the charlatans and voodoo queens of their day in that their practice was legitimate, a fact which led them into infamy and eventually forced them out of the public eye. Once underground they tapped in to the existing network of hunters which had been formally established by the first colonists in the New World (hunting had existed in North America for thousands of years in Native American culture) and became some of the first persons to hunt professionally and perhaps the very first to hunt for profit. It was practically a Jeanneton motto never to do anything for free and to extort whenever and wherever possible by this point in time. In less than a decade after going underground the Jeannetons had earned respect as superior hunters. By 1880 they no longer advertised their services in any way and instead operated quite silently and anonymously in the 'base and outpost' model they use to this day. In this model the immediate family remains in New Orleans, hunting and learning the family's traditional practice and craft and running the 'base' of operation while securing financial means for the 'outposts' which otherwise could not support themselves. More distant family members populate the 'outposts,' which are essentially small bases which may or may not have the capacity to be independent from the base. Originally the family's base was a grocery store they opened in 1842 in the French Quarter; many of the original outposts are still in operation as they were in various river towns along the Mississippi and it's tributaries as far north as Cairo. Jeanneton presence was and is most strongly felt in the hunting community outside of Louisiana along the rivers and in the surrounding areas. Modern Jeannetons In the Modern Era of Hunting (1945-present), the Jeannetons have continued to dominate their field, though their power is waning. The grocery store that served as their base has been converted to a novelty voodoo and souvenir shop with the outposts similarly adapting to the times. The 1990's and early 2000's were particularly difficult decades for the Jeannetons. Internal conflicts within the now large and extended clan as well as the Lycanthropy Outbreak of '97 and the beginnings of Hell's mobilization took a tremendous toll on their numbers. Most surviving Jeannetons are either too young or too old to hunt with the younger generations just starting to come of age. There are also many who are otherwise incapacitated either through injury or infection. The Jeannetons keep those in their ranks who became infected with lycanthropy quarantined in Winterborough, Iowa. Known Jeannetons (both living and dead) *Augustine Jeanneton, (deceased) *Evangeline Marie (Jeanneton), founder and original practitioner (deceased) *Eleanor Rodgers (Jeanneton through her mother), hunter *Madeline Rodgers (Jeanneton through her mother), civilian *Perrine Jeanneton, former hunter (deceased) Category:humans